By Iain Gilbert
Date: Wednesday 15 Jul 2020
LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Media company Mission Group said on Wednesday that while the Covid-19 pandemic had led to a "material impact" on demand, it had "adapted well" to the reality of the outbreak and its effect on trading.
Mission said that following a positive start to 2020, it had entered the Covid-19 crisis in "a position of strength" and highlighted that proactive and prudent measures taken to conserve cash, strong client retention and new client wins had all led to a robust trading performance that was ahead of initial projections.
The AIM-listed firm now expects to report revenues of £29m for the period, a marked drop on the £39m recorded the same time a year earlier, and also anticipates swinging to an interim pre-tax loss of £2.2m from the profit of £3.4m recorded twelve months prior.
Mission added that its historic second half weighting in profitability meant that, providing it does not experience further deterioration in its trading environment, it still expects to deliver a profitable performance for the full year, albeit at materially lower levels than 2019.
Chief executive James Clifton said: "At the onset of the Covid-19 crisis we took the decision to plan for the worst but to strive for the best and I am very encouraged by the group's performance during this challenging period.
"Whilst the short-term outlook remains uncertain and our performance in the second half of the year will inevitably be dependent on macro-economic recovery across our markets, we are confident in the group's ability to weather the current trading environment and benefit from future opportunities as more normal trading conditions resume."
As of 1000 BST, Mission shares were down 2.20% at 62.10p.